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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Device for Locking a Control Knob
A simple, effective, easy-to-use device locks a control knob in a set position. In the initial application for which this device was conceived, the control knob to be locked is that of a needle valve. Previously, in that application, it was necessary for one technician to hold the knob to keep the valve at the...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Three techniques have been proposed to prolong the intervals of time available for microgravity experiments aboard airplanes flown along parabolic trajectories. Typically, a pilot strives to...
Briefs: Information Technology
An improved method of analysis of coverage of areas of the Earth by a constellation of radio-communication or scientific-observation satellites has been developed. This method is intended...
Briefs: Information Technology
Update on EMD and Hilbert-Spectra Analysis of Time Series
U.S. Patent 6,381,559 presents further information about the method described in "Analyzing Time Series Using EMD and Hilbert Spectra" (GSC-13817), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 24, No. 10 (October 2000), page 63. To recapitulate: The method is especially well suited for analyzing time-series data...
Briefs: Materials
Functionally Graded Nanophase Beryllium/Carbon Composites
Beryllium, beryllium alloys, beryllium carbide, and carbon are the ingredients of a class of nanophase Be/Be2C/C composite materials that can be formulated and functionally graded to suit a variety of applications. In a typical case, such a composite consists of a first layer of either pure...
Briefs: Materials
Thermal-insulation blankets of a proposed type would be exceptionally thin and would endure temperatures up to 2,100 °C. These blankets were originally intended to protect components...
Briefs: Software
Numerical Modeling of Nanoelectronic Devices
Nanoelectronic Modeling 3-D (NEMO 3-D) is a computer program for numerical modeling of the electronic structure properties of a semiconductor device that is embodied in a crystal containing as many as 16 million atoms in an arbitrary configuration and that has overall dimensions of the order of tens of...
Briefs: Software
Computer Program Recognizes Patterns in Time-Series Data
A computer program recognizes selected patterns in time-series data like digitized samples of seismic or electrophysiological signals. The program implements an artificial neural network (ANN) and a set of N clocks for the purpose of determining whether N or more instances of a certain...
Briefs: Software
Program for User-Friendly Management of Input and Output Data Sets
A computer program manages large, hierarchical sets of input and output (I/O) parameters (typically, sequences of alpha- numeric data) involved in computational simulations in a variety of technological disciplines. This program represents sets of parameters as structures coded in...
Briefs: Software
Software for Acquiring Image Data for PIV
PIV Acquisition (PIVACQ) is a computer program for acquisition of data for particle- image velocimetry (PIV). In the PIV system for which PIVACQ was developed, small particles entrained in a flow are illuminated with a sheet of light from a pulsed laser. The illuminated region is monitored by a...
Briefs: Software
Organizing Diverse, Distributed Project Information
SemanticOrganizer is a software application designed to organize and integrate infor- mation generated within a distributed organ- ization or as part of a project that involves multiple, geographically dispersed collaborators. Semantic- Organizer incorporates the capa- bilities of database...
Briefs: Software
Eigensolver for a Sparse, Large Hermitian Matrix
A parallel-processing computer program finds a few eigenvalues in a sparse Hermitian matrix that contains as many as 100 million diagonal elements. This program finds the eigenvalues faster, using less memory, than do other, comparable eigensolver programs. This program implements a Lanczos algorithm...
Briefs: Software
Modified Polar-Format Software for Processing SAR Data
HMPF is a computer program that implements a modified polar-format algorithm for processing data from spaceborne synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) systems. Unlike prior polar-format processing algorithms, this algorithm is based on the assumption that the radar signal wavefronts are spherical...
Briefs: Software
e-Stars Template Builder
e-Stars Template Builder is a computer program that implements a concept of enabling users to rapidly gain access to information on projects of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The information about a given project is not stored in a data base, but rather, in a network that follows the project as it develops. e-Stars...
Briefs: Software
Software for Acoustic Rendering
SLAB is a software system that can be run on a personal computer to simulate an acoustic environment in real time. SLAB was developed to enable computational experimentation in which one can exert low-level control over a variety of signalprocessing parameters, related to spatialization, for conducting psycho-...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A method of processing digital image data to detect edges includes the use of fuzzy reasoning. The method is completely adaptive and does not require any advance knowledge of an image.
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Foam Sensor Structures Would Be Self-Deployable and Survive Hard Landings
A document proposes systems of sensors encased in cold hibernated elastic memory (CHEM) structures for exploring remote planets. The CHEM concept was described in two prior NASA Tech Briefs articles, including “Cold Hibernated Elastic Memory (CHEM) Expandable Structures”...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Real-Gas Effects on Binary Mixing Layers
This paper presents a computational study of real-gas effects on the mean flow and temporal stability of heptane/ nitrogen and oxygen/ hydrogen mixing layers at supercritical pressures. These layers consist of two counter- flowing free streams of different composition, temperature, and density. As in related...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Wedge Heat-Flux Indicators for Flash Thermography
Wedge indicators have been proposed for measuring thermal radiation that impinges on specimens illuminated by flash lamps for thermographic inspection. Heat fluxes measured by use of these indicators would be used, along with known thermal, radiative, and geometric properties of the specimens, to...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Earth-Space Link Attenuation Estimation via Ground Radar Kdp
A method of predicting attenuation on microwave Earth/ spacecraft comm- unication links, over wide areas and under various atmospheric conditions, has been developed. In the area around the ground station locations, a nearly horizontally aimed polarimetric S-band ground radar measures the...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Update on Area Production in Mixing of Supercritical Fluids
The paper “Turbulence and Area Production in Binary-Species, Super- critical Transitional Mixing Layers” presents a more recent account of the research sum- marized at an earlier stage in “Area Production in Super- critical, Transitional Mixing Layers” (NPO-30425), NASA Tech...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Dyakonov-Perel Effect on Spin Dephasing in n-Type GaAs
A paper presents a study of the contribution of the Dyakonov-Perel (DP) effect to spin dephasing in electron-donor-doped bulk GaAs in the presence of an applied steady, moderate magnetic field perpendicular to the growth axis of the GaAs crystal. (The DP effect is an electron-wave-...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Conventional commercial spectrometers or spectrophotometers are usually able to measure optical spectrum from a specified surface area at one point....
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Reconditioned Test Equipment as a Key Driver in Reducing Life Cycle Support Costs
Previously owned test and measurement equipment has been purchased for over 50 years by the United States military, agencies of the Federal gov- ernment, and prime contractors that support these organizations. Yet, despite the significant amount of previously owned...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The Real-Time Interferometer Control Systems Testbed (RICST) timing board is a VersaModule Eurocard (VME)-based board that can generate up to 16 simultaneous, phase-locked timing signals at a rate defined...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Figure 1 shows a three-stage monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifier that features high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) as gain elements. This amplifier is designed to...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An apparatus that is extremely effective in dispensing a wide range of droplets has been developed. This droplet dispenser is unique in that it utilizes a droplet bias voltage, as well as an ionization pulse, to...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Network Extender for MIL-STD-1553 Bus
An extender system for MIL-STD-1553 buses transparently couples bus components at multiple developer sites. The bus network extender is a relatively inexpensive system that minimizes the time and cost of integration of avionic systems by providing a convenient mechanism for early testing without the need to...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Some prototype parts of a digital beam-forming (DBF) receiver that would operate at multigigahertz carrier frequencies have been developed. The beam-forming algorithm in a DBF...
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